This past Thanksgiving, great American rock band Archers of Loaf sent a brief communique from the band’s website that 2020 would mark “The Return of the Loaf” and shared four tour dates for the new year, exciting so many folks in the process. Today, in addition to announcing more shows, the quartet delivers this exciting news: The band spent the holidays in the studio, and there will be new recordings from Archers of Loaf in 2020, their first in over two decades.

Singer-guitarist Eric Bachmann, guitarist Eric Johnson, bassist Matt Gentling, and drummer Mark Price formed Archers of Loaf in Chapel Hill, NC, in 1991. Icky Mettle was the first of four studio albums that would define the group’s sound, described by Robert Christgau as “guitars screeching every which way, beats speeding and hesitating and slamming chaos back into the box, twentysomething boy-voices whining and arguing and drawling and straining.”

Though Bachmann focused on Crooked Fingers at the turn of the century and, more recently, his solo project, Archers of Loaf never officially broke up. After a 13-year hiatus, the band performed a secret show in January 2011 at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC, with The Love Language. The show proved they hadn’t really missed a beat, and the band operated in a sporadic fashion through the 2010s… until now. A full list of announced Archers of Loaf tour dates is below, with more performances to be revealed throughout the year. 

Archers of Loaf on tour:
Feb 21 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
Feb 22 Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
Mar 07 Nashville, TN – Basement East
Mar 14 Boston, MA – Royale
Apr 10 Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle
Apr 11 Birmingham, AL – Saturn
Apr 17 Philadelphia, PA – Theater of Living Arts
Apr 18 Baltimore, MD – Ottobar